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Walter Gropius (1883-1969, founder of tthe Bauhaus School and one of the principle builders of modern architecture) and Martin Wagner (1888-1957) were thinking of a new type of “town”, of a different sort of settlement for people, when they wrote this exercise instructional for their Harvard course. Housing as a townbuilding1 problem, written during the war in 1942, was intended to be an exercise (or “problem”), a case to be studied by the students in the departments of landscape architecture and the graduate school of design at Harvard. The class opened with this rare2 pamphlet as a basis for course work, given to the students on 2 Feb 1942, with the problem’s answers expected to be on Gropius desk five weeks later. Gropius and Martin put a tough, wide-ranging, landscape-changing question and expected answers in a very short period of time, though they definitely had a very structured plan and approach to dealing with massive implications of their exercise. The theory was outlined there in the paper, of course, and was expanded much more fully in class. And then there was this: a full page of datelines and expectations, a way of dealing with a large problem in logical chunks, adding up the answered bits, and then delivering a larger answer at the end and on time.

I’m not an architecture or design historian, so much of this paper was a little lost on me–but I could definitely appreciate the way in which the great Gropius outlined the process of problem-thinking and solution for his students. This may be the part of this paper that I liked the most.

In "The Walter Gropius House Landscape: A Collaboration of Modernism and the Vernacular"3 (published in the Journal of Architectural Education, 1984, 57 (3), p. 39) Eric F. Kramer wrote:

“Sounding similar themes in a 1942 joint studio problem for landscape and architecture, Walter [Gropius] wrote of the inspiration of the vernacular landscape and of integrating with existing systems: ‘Such a landscape invites the artist planner to observe and preserve its variety of aspects, and to invent a settlement pattern that .ts into its natural beauty. Fortunately our forefathers have already traced out a settlement pattern that fits very well into the landscape.’ Gropius–the grand master builder and master teacher–set out the problem and the solution”.

There are of course major statements in city-building and human resettlement in this work, but for now, I’m still concentrated on the Bauhaus-founder’s outline for problem solving.

Notes

1. The full title: Housing as a townbuilding problem; a post-war housing problem for the students of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, February-March, 1942.

And in that publication Gropius writes: “When we speak of ‘new townships’ we think of a new type of human settlement “, with a redefined vision of what a “town” means, using an idea of “reception basins” for spheres of cities as centers of culture, art and commerce “and our open country as furtherer if an industrialized agriculture and of forestry and recreation”. (page 21). And all of that to be manufactured along the lines of “planned super-highway systems, one branch of which is to go through New England region and will supposedly cut through the towns of Weston and Weyland”.–Gropius and Martin.

2. This copy was in the Office for Emergency Management; only five other copies have been found and these in excellent collections: MIT, Harvard University, Cornell, Columbia and the NYPL (Special Collections). So the publication is pretty scarce, and given its method of printing and distribution, it looks like not many survived, though it is difficult to say how many were actually printed. In any event, few survived. And the holding libraries are, well, pretty good.

3. The abstract of this paper is helpful: “The Walter Gropius House Landscape A Collaboration of Modernism and the Vernacular”. “The Gropius house landscape is a potent physical manifestation of the design debates of its era. The landscape is an element of both mediation and integration forging a reciprocal and evenhanded relationship between architecture and site. Shaped by modern architectural sensibilities translated to the landscape and developed at a moment when landscape architecture was struggling to .nd a modernist inspiration and voice, it is an object lesson in the development of a modernist landscape architecture in America...” “In these studio problems, Gropius consistently encouraged students to find new form in the functional requirements of modern times and yet to integrate with existing systems through an understanding of their own functionally driven evolution.”

06/23/2015

As M. Chabat writes,"Considérés au point de vue de la forme et de l'ornementation extérieures un grand nombre de puits de toutes les époques peuvent être regardés comme de véritables œuvres d'art...", which is certainly true of the well at the citadel of Turin--even the elevation and (particularly) the plan of the structure.

Funny that this is what I find most interesting in this big engraved sheet from Jean Nicolas Louis Durand's monumental and important semi-biblical work on the history of architecture, but, so it goes. (The work is Recueil et Parallele des Edifices, and was printed in Venice by Giuseppe Antonelli in Venice in 1833; it comes some 31 years after the appearance of the first edition, greatly expanded, with 273 plates compared to 90 in the first.)

440x660 mm, 1833. Original engraving from JNL Durand, Recueil et Parallele des Edifices, and was printed in Venice by Giuseppe Antonelli in Venice in 183. Very crisp copy. $145

There's plenty on this sheet worthy of attention--and as the Durand work is concerned, it is one of the few to feature towers. And in the case of the Turin well, it may be considered (here at least and not probably by anyone who knows anything at all about architecture) to be a reverse tower. This is slim pickin's so far as engineering reasoning goes--or is it? Why if it was so removed from logic would the considerable and considered Durant include the thing on his page of towers?

One of the remarkable points on this structure was the dual circular staircases that would allow the horses hauling water from the depths for go up and down without having to pass on another.

The other thing about Durand was that his work is considered a great scientific improvement in the description of architecture, and seems to me to be the first work to compare different sorts of buildings (and from different periods) all in the same scale, on pone piece of paper, side-by-side. It seems that in the history of formalization and categorization and classification that this business of comparative architecture that someone would have used a single standard of description for size--but evidently not.

06/21/2015

I thought that I had mentioned this pamphlet before--mainly because of its provocative cover art--but no. It comes from the bookstore's collection of many hundreds (a thousand?) of unusual book/pamphlet cover art. "A Dream, a Reality" and/or "Coast to Coast Transcontinental Super Highway" isn't actually the title of this work even though they are on the cover; it is mostly a caption for an interior image though it somehow percolated topside. The real title is The Highway of Tomorrow made Possible by the Ideal of Today, which gets to the subject of the work even though it is slightly unwieldy. It is difficult to say who wrote this though Mr. T.E. Steiner ("Sponsor", of Wooster, Ohio) and which somehow found its way to a fourth edition in its two years of existence, published and promoted in undoubtedly small numbers by the "Transcontinental Stream-Lined Super Highway of the United States of America" in 1938.

(STEINER, T.E.) The Highway of Tomorrow made Possible by the Ideal of Today. 1938. 56pp, 4 plates, 2 folding. Original wrappers. Scarce--only four copies located in WorldCat. $125

This is all about super-highways, and mainly replacing the old roads with four new roads that are as straight as straight could be. A map of the proposals features one line of the highway is straight from San Francisco to Boston; another from Laredo, Texas (!) direct to International Falls, Minnesota (!); a third not-straight shot from Boston-Allentown-near-Valdosta Ga-Miami; and another from near-Valdosta to Cleveland. A schematic of this map though drops near-Valdosta for Jacksonville, and has the Boston-Miami route further east to include NYC and D.C., which are omitted from the map. Ah, well.

I think that the author--an accomplished "business man" was was the head of a "manufacturing company" in Ohio and a coal company in West Virginia (and "employer of labor") --was not much of an engineer, because the plan ignores topography and the highway design itself is pretty bad, especially the parts on exit/entrance (which the author takes particular care to note are separately copyrighted (?)) bits, which are killers.

In any event, the super highway extending into the clouds on the cover is all I'm here for. Mr. Steiner no doubt attracted some attention for the project because of the enormous pork and public works potential, what with the building of 6,000 miles or whatever of an 8-lane highway, which is billions of square feet of paving times some multiplier. So a lot of money would be spent, which means, well, a lot of possible interest--after all, it did get so far as a hearing before the Committee on Roads, U.S. House of Representatives, on May 18, 1937.

This no doubt was a "visionary"proposal of some sort, though the engineering aspects of it were more imaginary than anything else.

06/15/2015

The following four engravings appeared in the massive La Basilica di San Marino du Venezia, published by the prolific Ferdinand Ongania in 1886. It is an exhaustive study of the iconic building, the publication being known chiefly I think for its very large and sumptuous chromolithographs of the building's architecture, art, and endless detail. It forms two volumes of an overall monumental 12-volume epic, though these were complete in themselves.

But then there are these engraving, in wonderful black-and-white, showing with fantastic detail and with a deft touch the mosaics of the basilica. I believe that there were six overall but I sold two some time ago and hadn't made a digital record of them. Since I have these and another 22 images from that great work, and since I can't seem to find them online, I thought to make at least rudimentary photographs of them and share. (Making the pictures was a little problematic, as they are pretty large at 27x21", so some of the lines are a little parabolic, though I think they're good enough given limited time to spend on them--also each image is at least 2 meg, so they can stand some amount of enlarging.)

The engravings (again, they are large at 27x21", 68x53cm, and are packed with detail). They are printed on a very thick paper that will now crack if you try the double-fold test, so although the paper is stable you do not want to bend it, though you wouldn't want to do that, anyway. Each sheet has a protective paper guard attached to it on the left side, covering the entire image--the reason why you may see a shadow along one long side is just from the rolled-back protective sheet not getting completely out of the way. Also all of the margins are not necessarily included in the photos--there were certain limitations in making the photographs, and some margins just didn't make ti entirely into the picture. IF you want more full images, please let me know and I'll send a jpeg detail shot.

These are large and gorgeous pieces of art, and have a certain value of beauty outside their architectural context. (The images are also very clickable.)

06/14/2015

(Jean Baptiste) Amedee Couder wrote L'Architecture et l'industrie comme moyen de perfection sociale, a fine work that was published in Paris (by Brockhaus et Avenarius) in 1842. The work presents Couder's rather stroing visionary plans for a perfect city of industrial and scientific harmony, laid out in suggestively-fractal harmony, with the suggestions of a Renaissance-laden snowflake design. Whatever it was, it was beautiful to look at, at least on paper, though I'm not so certain that I'd care to live in the canyonlands of stone and shadow on the other side of the garden wall of the perfect scientific-industrial conclave.

05/28/2015

The content of this antique print was expected (on some level) though it was still surprising. "Domitian's Naumachina or Naval Amphitheatre" is from an unknown source though the basis of the image has been used and reused a number of time in the 18th century--I expect this one to be mid-18th or so. Domitian was not the happiest of Caesars, and from time to time engaged in enormous spectacles, including scenes like the above, flooding the amphitheater and launching ships for combat and amusement of the spectacle.

"Domitian's Naumachina or Naval Amphitheatre". Original engraving, ca. 1750-1775, 7x5" on 10x8" sheet. Three old folds, one short tear about one inch long in one fold, extending slightly into the image. Bright and crisp. $75

The following--describing Domitian and his compounded public display interests is from -Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources. II. Rome and the West, edited byWilliam Stearns Davis (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1913, pp. 194-195, Source: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Domit.html

The original print is available for sale at the blog bookstore, here.

"Despite their control of the army and the subservience of the Senate, the average Emperor quailed before the hootings and ill will of the Roman mob. Thus Domitian (81-96 A.D.), a bad and tyrannical Caesar, tried to win popularity by providing the idle masses of the capital with their favorite games and arena massacres."

"He frequently entertained the people with the most magnificent and costly shows, not only in the amphitheater, but in the circus; where, besides the usual chariot races, with two or four horses abreast, he exhibited the imitation of a battle betwixt cavalry and infantry; and in the amphitheater a sea fight. The people too were entertained with wild-beast hunts, and gladiator fights even in the night-time, by torchlight. He constantly attended the games given by the quaestors, which had been disused for some time, but were revived by him; and upon those occasions, he always gave the people the liberty of demanding two pair of gladiators out of his own [private] "school," who appeared last in court uniforms."

"He presented the people with naval fights, performed by fleets almost as numerous as those usually employed in real engagements; making a vast lake near the Tiber, and building seats around it. And he witnessed these fights himself during a very heavy rain."

02/13/2012

Monaghan, Frank. The World of Yesterday and the World of Tomorrow. 1938. 11 laves Offset type collected leaves Address of Dr. Frank Monaghan, Professor of History, Yale University, and Director of Research of the New York World's Fair 1939, before the Members of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation, October 12, 1938.

Contents: on history, the future, and the work of the World's Fair. "I would like to say that many of the persons most responsible for the planning and the building of the Fair have a keen sense and lively appreciation of these values. If we in the Fair talk frequently of the "World of Tomorrow" it is because we are intensely interested and concerned with making a lasting contribution to it."

This is a gathering of 11 offset (or mimeographed) sheets, gathered by a paper clip. Size & Pages: 11 x 8 inches 11 pp, printed on one side only. Conservative condition grade: a sold, and retrospective, VERY GOOD (say, a conservative 6.5 on a 1-10 scale (ten being Mint)). There is some overall browning and dusting to the front and back sheets. The interior sheets however are in fine condition with just a little ageing/browning. The paper is still crisp. $250.00

03/24/2011

ITEM: The New City, an American Plan of Social and Economic Reorganization (1938). 7x5 inches, 29pp. Very good condition. No copies located in the OCLC/WorldCat. $100

ref: JF Ptak Science Books Post 1421

The unnamed author of The New City, an American Plan of Social and Economic Reorganization (1938), makes a hard-edged plea for the formation of a new American society—and by “new” the author really means it, advocating a different economics, social structure and even the physical development of new cities and abandonment of the old physical and philosophical structures.

Sprinkled among the Swiftian notions of rightness, quixotic lancings of social ills and a general bombardment of the structure of society are some interesting and isolated points: “America is the supreme user of the machine…ravishing the irreplaceable wealth of one of the earth’s richest continents, tearing down forests, looting the treasures of coal and draining the reservoirs of oil and natural gas, by methods scandalously wasteful.”

This leads the author to the Depression, “a decade of demonstration of the profit system’s inability to deliver to the people the needs of life, a painful heartbreaking demonstration”.

It is the profit-deliverers, not the machines or people, who are to blame. One way of addressing the distribution system, was, unfortunately, Russia—“a form if society set up to overcome this impasse of the capitalistic system of production and distribution”. Of course the Russians--the Soviets--were just in the middle of their enforced starvation/gulag/brutalization period under Josef Stalin, the gigantic negative parts of which were still in general not known to the great unwashed.

The unnamed author dips lightly into Socialism, and then into Fascism and Nazism, though the only thing he/she really has to say about the later two is that “their answer [to economic woe] was in the seizure or control of the means of production by the state”, their own brutal means skipping off unnoticed into a pinkish glow, though the loss of personal freedom is “disdained”.

The New City is actually a new world order, a new governmental form to take advantage of technological advancements leading to “nationalized urbanization” The first city in this new order is Neopolis, and this pamphlet was a call to those who would stand as its citizens. (There’s actually a sort of application form, though all it really is a bill-of-sale for ordering more copies of the New City pamphlet.)

Even though the pamphlet is easily obtained, membership, the possibility of being a Neopolitan, is something entirely different. The difference is actually exceptional, perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this whole misguided idea. “Membership is to be carefully controlled at all times” we read. . “It is not desired to build up a huge and unwieldy membership of poorly-assimilated elements….interesting educational instruction…with tests to determine the fitness of the member for loyal, cooperative activity, leading, necessarily, to the elimination of those who may be found undesirable”. That’s some pretty muscular, steroidal stuff, particularly after such a glancing blow against the Soviets and Nazis. Since this is just an “abridgment” of a soon-to-be-written 250-page explanation of the concept, the complex and concentric organization of society is left mainly to the drawing of its plan, the physical layout of the city based upon this ideal.

The Seattle-based author never did quite make it past page 29, never did name themselves, and never provided a concrete place where all of this heady stuff was being think out. It is a sort of pretty design in a creepy/queasy way, there on the front cover, but that’s about as far as it goes. If anyone actually did send any money to this quack thinker, it wound up in a nicely metaphorical place: at “Terminal Box 3463”.

This may be the very best idea to come out of touching this pamphlet—a place where people can send correspondence regarding Bad and/or Dead or Dying Ideas: “Terminal Box ______”. I guess that box number would be pretty high by now.

(Uncle Joe, before he killed the children, and dozens of millions of others.)

11/24/2010

ITEM: Christopher Wren's buildings, in The Illustrated London News, 15 October 1932, 13x10 inches. Very good condition. $35

In a short line of my favorite English Baroque architect/masters, there is no superior to Sir Christopher Wren, and there is no second. Granted my interest in him comes ‘round the back door, through the almost-eternally-fabulous Robert Hooke (one of the great master British scientists of the 17th century and to whom nearly everyone owes some debt, a genius of great difficult and whose maligned reputation is somewhat deserved) who assisted/worked with Wren for a time after the Great Fire.

Hooke (1635-1703) and Wren share a big Something–they were both capable of great thinking across many fields and disciplines As a matter of fact Wren (1632-1723) received a formal scientific training and was a gifted astronomer and mathematician in addition to being perhaps the most-gifted architect in the history of England. To give the devil his due, though, few people could touch the depth and breath of Hooke’s incredible interests, or match the phenomenal diversity of his productions. (He has been referred to, justifiably, as “England’s Leonardo” by Alan Chapman in his 2005 book o the same name. If it wasn’t Hooke as Leonardo, I don’t know who else it might be.) Wren as it turns out was also a founder of the Royal Society and acted as its president from 1680-1682–a Society to which Hooke was deeply devoted, and which was probably kept alive by his efforts.

When you look at Wren’s accomplishments writ large, all drawn together in this reproduction, you can really appreciate the great spectrum of his building career--not the list of which includes the iconic St. Paul's, featured, looming, in rear center. Some people are able to place their accomplishments in great bumps on the horizion; some give you the opportunity to see or visualize them; some help you understand how those things are held together; and some give you the horizon. Wren's accomplishments are definitely very pretty horizon-blockers. [This image is available for purchase from our blog bookstore.]